a combined attack upon the decisive point, is applied; and it is easy to understand how a general of ability, with 60,000 men, may be able to defeat 100,000, if he can bring 50,000 into action upon a single part of his enemy's line; for battles are decided, not by troops upon the muster-rolls, nor even by those present, but by those alone who are simultaneously engaged.

III.

In the selection of the particular line of operations, the rulers of a country must be governed by circumstances. The situation of the belligerents; their resources; nature of the fortresses; strength of their forces; distance from sea; direction of a chain of mountains; course of a river; the condition of neutral powers, or apprehensions of an ally, should all receive due consideration. It is requisite to foresee everything the enemy may do, and be prepared to meet it. It is true we sometimes see bad selections succeed, the plans of which are entirely at variance with the principles of war; but these are either the results of the caprices of fortune or of the errors committed by the enemy. A good general should never trust either; and if his government lays a plan which he considers faulty, to attempt to execute it would be culpable, if it were his opinion that he thus allowed himself to be made instrumental in his army's ruin. It would become his duty to represent his reasons against it, and endeavour to persuade a change of plan, and, if unsuccessful, rather resign than do violence to his conscience and wrong to his countrymen.

"In general, the initial application of military masses should be when the belligerents are neighbours on some part of the frontier which projects into the hostile state, as Bohemia with regard to Prussia, or Silesia with regard to Austria. But it is a maxim that lines of operations have their key as well as fields of battle: in the former, the great strategical points are decisive; as in the latter, the points which command the weak part of a position constitute the key."

Of all the obstacles on the frontier of states, says Napoleon, the most difficult to overcome is the desert-mountains

next; and large rivers occupy the third place. These are important considerations in the invasion of a country, coming as they do from a man of so much experience, independent of his great military genius. He appears to have been called upon to surmount every kind of difficulty incidental to warfare in his military career.

In Egypt he traversed burning deserts, suffering dreadfully from heat and thirst, and vanquished and destroyed the Mamelukes, so celebrated for their courage and address, in a country ill adapted to supply the wants of his troops. In the conquest of Italy he twice crossed the Alps by difficult passes, and at a season which rendered the undertaking truly formidable. In three months he passed the Pyrenees, beat and dispersed four Spanish armies. In short, from the Rhine to the Borysthenes, no natural obstacle could be found to arrest the rapid march of his victorious army.

IV.

When an army undertakes an invasion or acts offensively, it takes the lead in the movements, and those of the enemy are necessarily subordinate to them. If it occupies with a division each of the great avenues leading to the enemy, he will be in doubt and perplexity as to the point of the intended attack, and will not know where to concentrate his masses to oppose them. Although it is absolutely necessary to move with a mass of force near the enemy, yet if the army takes the lead in the movements it may gain great advantages by marching in separate corps while still at a distance from him, if he has not a concentrated mass ready to act, and there be several roads leading concentrically towards the point intended to be occupied. Five corps of 20,000 men each, will, of course, move forward more rapidly towards any point, than a hundred thousand men marching on the same road, who can only advance with the tardiness natural to large bodies. They are not only interfering with the movements of each other, but they must necessarily be encumbered with the immense train of baggage for subsistence.

An army of 20,000 men can find subsistence by merely causing the country for some leagues around to contribute

to their wants; and if they take with them biscuit for a week, that is, during the first period, while corps are in position, or manœuvring in a contracted area with other columns, they can subsist until the magazines are formed. This plan will enable the general to dispense with the necessity of prearranged magazines, or the encumbrance of field-ovens.

The general direction is upon the centre, one of the extremities, or the rear of the enemy's line. Of these an extremity is usually to be preferred, because from it the rear is easily gained. The centre is preferred only where the enemy's line is scattered and his corps separated by long intervals.

V.

It should be laid down as a principle, that when the conquest of a country is undertaken by two or three armies, which have each their separate line of operation until they arrive at a point fixed upon for their concentration, the junction should never take place too near the enemy, because the latter, in uniting his forces, might not only prevent it, but defeat the armies in detail. This error was committed by Frederick the Great, in the campaign of 1757. Marching to the conquest of Bohemia with two armies, which had each their separate line of operation; he united them in the sight of the Duke of Lorraine, who covered Prague with the imperial army. Frederick, it is true, succeeded, but the success of this march depended entirely on the inaction of the Duke, who, at the head of 70,000 men, did nothing to prevent the junction of the two Prussian armies.

VI.

Plans of campaign may be modified, ad libitum, according to circumstances, the genius of the general, the character of the troops, and the features of the country.

Sometimes hazardous campaigns succeed, the plan of which is directly at variance with the maxims of war, as already stated, by good fortune, or faults of the enemy, upon which a general should never count; for even when the plan is originally good, it may run the risk of failing at the outset, if opposed by an adversary who acts at first on the defensive,

and then suddenly seizing the initiative, surprises by the skilfulness of his manœuvres. Such was the fate of the plan laid down by the Aulic council, for the campaign of 1796,| under the command of Marshal Wurmser. From his great numerical superiority, the Marshal had calculated on the entire destruction of the French army by cutting off its retreat. He founded his operations on the defensive attitude of his adversary, who was posted on the line of the Adige, and had to cover the siege of Mantua, as well as central and lower Italy.

Wurmser, supposing the French army fixed in the neighbourhood of Mantua, divided his force into three corps, which marched separately, intending to unite at that place. Napoleon, having penetrated the design of the Austrian general, felt all the advantage to be derived from striking the first blow against an army divided into three corps, without any relative communications. He hastened, therefore, to raise the siege of Mantua, assembled the whole of his forces, and by this means became superior to the imperialists, whose divisions he attacked and beat in detail. Thus Wurmser, who fancied he had only to march to certain victory, saw himself compelled, after a ten days' campaign, to retire with the remains of his army into the Tyrol, after a loss of 25,000 men in killed and wounded, 15,000 prisoners, nine stand of colours, and seventy pieces of cannon.

VII.

An army, says Napoleon, which undertakes the conquest of a country, has either its two wings resting upon neutral territories, or upon great natural obstacles, such as rivers or chains of mountains. It happens in some cases that only one wing is so supported, and in others, that both are exposed.

In the first instance cited, viz., where both wings are protected, a general has only to guard against being penetrated in front. In the second, when one wing only is supported, he should rest upon the supported wing. In the third, where both wings are exposed, he should depend upon a central formation, and never allow the different corps under his command to depart from this, for if it be difficult to contend with

the disadvantage of having two flanks exposed, the inconvenience is doubled by having four, tripled if there be six; that is to say, if the army is divided into two or three different corps. In the first instance, then, as above quoted, the line of operation may tend indifferently to the right or to the left. In the second, it should be directed towards the wing in support. In the third, it should be perpendicular to the centre of the army's line of march. But in all these cases it is necessary, every five or six days, to have a strong post or an entrenched position upon the line of march, in order to collect stores and provisions, to organize convoys, to form a centre of movement and establish a point of defence to shorten the line of operation.

These general principles of war were entirely unknown or lost sight of in the middle ages. The Crusaders in their fanaticism, while making their incursions into Palestine, appear to have had no other object in view but to fight and conquer, so little pains did they take to reap any advantages from their victories. Hence innumerable armies perished by their blind zeal, without any other advantage than that derived from the momentary success gained by their superiority in numbers.

By neglecting this principle, Charles the Twelfth, abandoning his line of operations and all communication with Sweden, threw himself into the Ukraine, and lost the greatest part of his army by the fatigue of a winter campaign, in a barren country without resources.

Defeated at Pultowa, he was reduced to seek refuge in Turkey, after crossing the Dnieper with the remains of his army, diminished to little more than one thousand men.

Gustavus Adolphus was the first who brought back the art of war to its true principles. His operations in Germany were bold, rapid and well executed. He made use of success for future security, and established his line of operation so as to guard against the possibility of any interruption in his communications with Sweden. His campaigns, therefore, form a new era in the art of war.